Woman takes bird under wing in blaze

‘I put her in my arms ... and got her out’

Credit: Ted Fitzgerald

RESCUED: Luca, a macaw, was rescued from a four-alarm fire in Lynn on Sunday.

When the alarms blared and people screamed as a fire blazed in a Lynn apartment building, Kim Valenti could think only of getting her beloved blue-and-gold macaw out alive.

Valenti opened her apartment door at about midnight Sunday and was greeted by thick, black smoke. The only way out was the fire escape. The 55-year-old grabbed her exotic bird, Luca, wrapped her up and put her in a laundry basket and handed the pet to her grown son, who carried the parrot down the ladder to safety.

“I sacrificed (time),” Valenti told the vet. “I put her in my arms, wrapped a blanket around her and got her out.”

The four-alarm fire on Lewis Street left about 70 people homeless. No injuries were reported, but other pets did not survive, fire officials said.

Valenti was crying all yesterday afternoon, partly because her home is gone, but also because Luca can’t stay in a shelter with her.

“We’ve been together for nine years,” she said at the North Shore Animal Hospital. “And this is the first time we’re gonna be apart.”

Valenti said Luca is 11 years old and has the mental capacity of a toddler and the appetite of a full-grown human.

“She drinks her coffee every morning, but she doesn’t like it black, she likes cream and sugar,” Valenti explained to the veterinarian taking her in. She also drinks Coke and loves crab rangoon, she said, adding she felt like “a nervous mother.”